Introduction to Controlled Vocabularies


Book Description

This detailed book is a “how-to” guide to building controlled vocabulary tools, cataloging and indexing cultural materials with terms and names from controlled vocabularies, and using vocabularies in search engines and databases to enhance discovery and retrieval online. Also covered are the following: What are controlled vocabularies and why are they useful? Which vocabularies exist for cataloging art and cultural objects? How should they be integrated in a cataloging system? How should they be used for indexing and for retrieval? How should an institution construct a local authority file? The links in a controlled vocabulary ensure that relationships are defined and maintained for both cataloging and retrieval, clarifying whether a rose window and a Catherine wheel are the same thing, or how pot-metal glass is related to the more general term stained glass. The book provides organizations and individuals with a practical tool for creating and implementing vocabularies as reference tools, sources of documentation, and powerful enhancements for online searching.




Introduction to Vocabularies


Book Description

Digital networking will make our global cultural heritage accessible to a widespread audience. To reach this audience, it is essential to create and employ terminology that brings consistency to the language used in information retrieval contexts. Introduction to Vocabularies highlights the crucial role that controlled vocabularies play in the description, cataloging, or documentation of cultural heritage information. The book stresses the importance of standards and the role of authority work in creating and managing vocabularies that would ensure integrated access. The book concludes with descriptions of three vocabulary databases developed by the Getty Information Institute. The Introduction to series acquaints professionals and students with the complex issues and technologies in the production, management, and dissemination of cultural heritage information resources.







Introduction to Imaging


Book Description

"The first edition of Introduction to Imaging was published in 1995 and quickly became a standard textbook on the construction of digital image collections. The Visual Resources Association Bulletin praised it for setting forth "important basic principles and technical terms that anyone beginning an imaging project would need to know."" "Significantly expanded and updated, the revised edition of Introduction to Imaging allows curators, librarians, collection managers, scholars, and students to better understand the basic technology and processes involved in building a cohesive set of digital images. It also explores how to link digitized images to the information required to access, preserve, and manage them. Other topics include making data interoperable with other information resources and activities; developing strategies that do not limit or foreclose future options; and ensuring the longevity of digital assets. Book jacket."--Jacket.




Cataloging Cultural Objects


Book Description

In a visual and artifact-filled world, cataloging one-of-a-kind cultural objects without published guidelines and standards has been a challenge. Now for the first time, under the leadership of the Visual Resources Association, a cross-section of five visual and cultural heritage experts, along with scores of reviewers from varied institutions, have created a new data content standard focused on cultural materials. This cutting-edge reference offers practical resources for cataloging and flexibility to meet the needs of a wide range of institutions—from libraries to museums to archives. Consistently following these guidelines for selecting, ordering, and formatting data used to populate metadata elements in cultural materials' catalog records: Promotes good descriptive cataloging and reduces redundancy Builds a foundation of shared documentation Creates data sharing opportunities Enhances end-user access across institutional boundaries Complements existing standards (AACR) This is a must-have reference for museum professionals, visual resources curators, archivists, librarians and anyone who documents cultural objects (including architecture, paintings, sculpture, prints, manuscripts, photographs, visual media, performance art, archaeological sites, and artifacts) and their images.




Thesaurus Construction and Use


Book Description

A practical guide to the construction of thesauri for use in information retrieval, written by leading experts in the field. Includes: planning and design; vocabulary control; specificity and compound terms; structure and relationships; auxiliary retrieval devices; multilingual thesauri; AAT Compound Term Rules. The US ANSI/NISO Z39.19 Thesaurus construction standard is also covered.




Introduction to Metadata


Book Description

An overview of metadata: what it is, its types and uses, and how it can help to make Web resources more accessible and comprehensible. Contains articles, a glossary, and a list of acronyms relating to metadata.




Research Strategies


Book Description

Welcome to the information fogTaking chargeDatabase searching with keywords and hierarchiesMetadata and the power of controlled vocabulariesLibrary catalogs and journal databasesInternet researchOther resources and case studies in researchLearning how to read for researchOrganizing your resources to write your paperTips on research writing.




The Discipline of Organizing: Professional Edition


Book Description

Note about this ebook: This ebook exploits many advanced capabilities with images, hypertext, and interactivity and is optimized for EPUB3-compliant book readers, especially Apple's iBooks and browser plugins. These features may not work on all ebook readers. We organize things. We organize information, information about things, and information about information. Organizing is a fundamental issue in many professional fields, but these fields have only limited agreement in how they approach problems of organizing and in what they seek as their solutions. The Discipline of Organizing synthesizes insights from library science, information science, computer science, cognitive science, systems analysis, business, and other disciplines to create an Organizing System for understanding organizing. This framework is robust and forward-looking, enabling effective sharing of insights and design patterns between disciplines that weren’t possible before. The Professional Edition includes new and revised content about the active resources of the "Internet of Things," and how the field of Information Architecture can be viewed as a subset of the discipline of organizing. You’ll find: 600 tagged endnotes that connect to one or more of the contributing disciplines Nearly 60 new pictures and illustrations Links to cross-references and external citations Interactive study guides to test on key points The Professional Edition is ideal for practitioners and as a primary or supplemental text for graduate courses on information organization, content and knowledge management, and digital collections. FOR INSTRUCTORS: Supplemental materials (lecture notes, assignments, exams, etc.) are available at http://disciplineoforganizing.org. FOR STUDENTS: Make sure this is the edition you want to buy. There's a newer one and maybe your instructor has adopted that one instead.




Essential Thesaurus Construction


Book Description

Many information professionals working in small units today fail to find the published tools for subject based organization that are appropriate to their local needs, whether they are archivists, special librarians, information officers, or knowledge or content managers. Large established standards for document description and organization are too unwieldy, unnecessarily detailed, or too expensive to install and maintain. In other cases the available systems are insufficient for a specialist environment, or don't bring things together in a helpful way. A purpose built, in-house system would seem to be the answer, but too often the skills necessary to create one are lacking. This practical text examines the criteria relevant to the selection of a subject management system, describes the characteristics of some common types of subject tool, and takes the novice step-by-step through the process of creating a system for a specialist environment. The methodology employed is a standard technique for the building of a thesaurus that incidentally creates a compatible classification or taxonomy, both of which may be used in a variety of ways for document or information management. Key areas covered are: What is a thesaurus? Tools for subject access and retrieval What a thesaurus is used for Why use a thesaurus? Examples of thesauri The structure of a thesaurus Thesaural relations Practical thesaurus construction The vocabulary of the thesaurus Building the systematic structure Conversion to alphabetic format Forms of entry in the thesaurus Maintaining the thesaurus Thesaurus software The wider environment. Readership: Although primarily aimed at the practising information professional, the book is also suitable for students of library and information science.